The program's doctors are seeking a second opinion on cornerback Tee Shepard, who is out with a torn tendon below his big toe.

Coach Hugh Freeze said Monday that Shepard's MRI results are being sent to an out-of-state doctor, and Ole Miss could know more as soon as today.

"I'm always optimistic but this is something that I'm not real familiar with," Freeze said. "... If it's completely torn, it definitely needs surgery. If not, there have been some that have gotten through the year and then had it fixed. I just want to wait for the guys to do it all the time to tell us what they think."

Losing Shepard would be a blow to Ole Miss' secondary, which gave up seven yards per attempt (eighth in the SEC) last season. Shepard was a National Signing Day coup, a four-star recruit from Holmes Community College that flipped from Mississippi State.

He was a five-star recruit out of high school but had taken a long path from first enrolling at Notre Dame in the spring of 2012 to this point. He first became academically eligible to play Division I football this season and had stood out in the first week of Ole Miss' practice as a potential lockdown corner.

"He has that good short-area quickness and then has that knack that you want in your corner of, 'Send the ball to me. I want the ball.' We see the whole package there," defensive coordinator Dave Wommack said last week.

Shepard, who is 6-foot-1, was also a big part of a restructuring of the Ole Miss cornerbacks and how they look physically. He, 5-foot-11 freshman Kendarius Webster and 6-2 sophomore Derrick Jones are all significantly bigger than incumbents Senquez Golson and Mike Hilton (both 5-9).

"I wanted to see us get longer at corner and recruit longer at corner, and we've been able to do that," Wommack said. "We love our corners but some of them are short and we wanted to get longer."

So far in camp Golson and Hilton have held onto their starting jobs, with Shepard, Jones and Webster all working with the second team. Webster, in particular, may now be asked to play more this season if Ole Miss gets bad news on Shepard.

"Physically he's gifted," Freeze said. "Where he is in understanding our stuff, he's still a little behind in all of that but if there's one position that is the easiest to pick up on stuff, it's corner."

Ole Miss did get some good news on Monday, with the return of cornerback Kailo Moore and defensive end Fadol Brown to practice. Both had been out for a week.

"I felt pretty good going forward," said Brown, coming off an ankle injury. "But when it gets to planting, it bothered me a little bit. But I'm going to fight through it."